Today, March 4, 2010 is Grammar Day! This year, National Grammar Day is hosted by Mignon Fogarty, also known to many of us as Grammar Girl. (Today is also, coincidentally, my father’s birthday; happy birthday, Dad!) So, what does one do to celebrate Grammar Day? Well, to begin with, I’m not going to give you any lessons on correct usage today. I mean, I’m really excited that I know the difference between:

lay and lie

differ from and differ with

the comma splice and a “regular” run-on

why it actually IS okay to split an infinitive…

Ok. I’m stopping now. The list above is starting to get me in the mood to write some sort of “lesson” or tips, and that’s not what celebrating grammar is for me…yes, I know I just earned my egghead title with that sentence. My biggest interest in grammar and punctuation is actually not the rules; the rules are easy enough to read, memorize, and always go back to check if you are feeling uncertain. My interest in grammar is in the effect that it has on writing and the very strong feelings that grammar rules can incite in writers. … Continue Reading

​

Ghostwriters make you shine. Many different walks of life have hired us to ghostwrite for them and, in each case, we’ve had varying degrees of involvement. Sometimes we’ve been hired to edit and clean up a rough draft, …

Well-read book proposals get published. Sometimes you don’t have to write an entire manuscript before submitting a proposal. In the case of many non-fiction and graphic novel projects, for example, publishers, literary agents, and commissioning editors will ask for …

Proofreaders save the day. Proofreading is the last major stage of the editing process. As always, reading and consistent marking remain essential. When we proofread, we read word-for-word, noting all punctuation, paragraphing, capitalization, and italics, and ensure that …

Hire a copyediting guru. Copyediting requires attention to every word in a manuscript, a thorough knowledge of the style to be followed, and the ability to make quick, logical, and defensible decisions. This type of editing, sometimes …

We’re former agents and in-house editors We’ve seen hundreds of pitches. As query letter ghostwriters, we’ve helped many authors find publishers. The unique set themselves apart because they know how to speak the language, and we help isolate and …

The fastest, least expensive avenue Whether it’s a short story, inspirational memoir, fictional novel, nonfiction book, old query letter, or new book proposal, we give the material a full review, covering a whole gamut of pertinent editorial issues, …